Florida State University research finds America’s polarized elected officials to be the best representation of their constituents

Researchers Doug Ahler, assistant professor of political science, and his colleague David Brockman of Stanford Graduate School of Business found that voters are most interested in politicians’ stances on issues, such as immigration and abortion, rather than their conservative or liberal ideologies. Voters are most concerned with individual issues.

Ahler and Brockman surveyed over 1,200 people in 2014 who indicated an agreement or disagreement with various independent statements about certain issues. The surveyindicatedwhere voters fell on an ideological scale of zero to 100. Zero indicated very liberal and 100 indicated very conservative.

Those same people were then presented with two candidates and were given their positions. The participants were asked which candidate reflected their views most.

A different study presented the participants with a politician that had the same ideology as the individual but differed with the individuals on certain issues.

Both of these studies led to the result that ideology did not matter. Nearly 70 percent of the time, the voter would choose the politician who agreed with them on certain views and issues, but had different overarching ideologies.

Researchers also found the case study ofPresident Donald Trump to be most telling. It was found that those who voted in the Republican primary – with scores of 50 – preferred Trump more than those who measured higher on the conservative end of the scale. This result was due to the extreme positions on some of the more liberal and conservative issues.

“People that shared the extreme right wing immigration attitude and left-wing economic positions on taxes voted for Trump, while someone who wanted lower taxes and more open borders were more likely to vote for Rand Paul,” Ahler said. “That tells us it’s the actual issues that matter.”

According to researchers, Trump measured as ideologically moderate on the liberal/conservative scale and it would be “inappropriate to deem Trump as representing the vast majority of America’s views.”

Data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study based on midterm Congressional elections helped Ahler and Brockman examine the "delegate paradox.” This concept explores the idea that politicians may still appear polarized, while still representing their constituents very closely.

For example, after looking closely at U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff’s voting behavior in 2009, they found that 60 percent of his constituents voted liberally on every issue, but it was a different 60 percent on each issue. Schiff still appeared more liberal than his average constituent.

Ahler and Brockman would advise voters to not assume that ideologically moderate candidates best represent constituents.

“When you use statistical tools you get this paradox where a member of Congress does best representing his or her constituents on the issues by voting with the party 100 percent of the time,” Ahler said. “This supports the idea that maybe members of Congress are doing the best they can to represent their constituents on the issues and that’s what’s leading them to look extreme.”

FSU student and Membership Chair for FSU College Republicans Courtland Culver weighed in on the research.

“From the standpoint of the College Republicans at Florida State, I can personally attest to the fact that while most if not everyone in the club would consider themselves conservative, there is still much diversity of thought,” Culver said.

Culver and the FSU College Republicans Treasurer Josh Durham provided a statement on behalf of the organization, writing that contentious issues in club discussions include immigration, the border wall, tariffs, criminal justice reform and the legalization of marijuana.

"Such conversations within a group of conservative students helps to prove that people are more passionate about specific issues than ideology for ideology’s sake," the statement from Culver and Durham reads.

Elysse Vernon, FSU’s College of Democrats Director of Public Relations doesn’t find the results to be surprising.

“I can say that members of College Democrats range in their views within the party, not everyone is going to agree with every candidate 100 percent of the time, that's just unrealistic,” said Vernon. “I think we've started to normalize highlighting issue-based candidates over ideological ones after the 2016 election. The trend is likely to continue into 2020."